September 3, 2010

So I was listening to Boy with a Coin by Iron and Wine when I realized that I didn’t know the meaning behind the lyrics (I’m big on lyrics and hidden meanings). So I started to look it up, and I got all these different opinions that it’s about Death and Life and G-d, etc. One of the opinions that I read over made me remember the age-old argument about how, “If there’s a god, then why would he let us suffer? Why are there rapists, murders, and other injustices in the world? Why does he hurt us so?” So this thought got me thinking more, and I realized that it’s like a parent-child relationship.

I think that G-d is a parent to us, and like all parents, can only help us so much. Since he cannot physically be here with us, he gives us our own set of parents to protect and watch over us until we are old enough to leave the house. He gives our parents the responsibility of protecting us, since he cannot physically be here, and in that sense, parents are all little “gods” I guess you could say. But anyway, just like a parent, he can only protect us from so much. Mother birds push baby birds out of a nest to teach them how to fly, and that’s how G-d works. He gives our souls bodies to teach us how to live, and it is then up to us how we chose to do things. We can either let Him help us, and in turn become better people, or we can totally ignore him, which doesn’t make you a bad person, it just doesn’t help, just like it never helps to not let your parents do what they can for you to make your life easier. G-d isn’t negligent and doesn’t have bad parenting, he’s actually the ultimate parent in the way that he let’s us make our own choices, and only interferes occasionally (have you ever had those “miracle circumstances”? yeah, in those instances). Just like any good parent, he lets us fall on our butt a little to realize what we’re doing wrong (like a mama bird to her baby birds) but he protects us too, when we let him.

G-d gave us free will to do what we want, just like parents have to do once you’re eighteen. It’s then up to you how you decide to use or abuse that free will. A parent won’t save you from everything, just like G-d. It’s a good way to teach you about life, and how to live it.

This was a little confusing, and it may have sounded a little ignorant, but it’s just my perspective on things.